Netflix may have gained direct connection to Comcast network

Video quality could improve if Netflix and Comcast settle their differences.

Netflix and Comcast may have made peace with each other. If they have, that could be good news for users who are frustrated with poor performance of Netflix video on Comcast's network.

App.net co-founder Bryan Berg today posted a traceroute on Github, saying it shows that "Comcast and Netflix now have a direct adjacency."

"Looked at the host serving my Netflix streams today and noticed something new," he wrote. "No clue if money is changing hands or not, and the return path is what actually matters, but it appears that Comcast and Netflix have reached some sort of agreement regarding direct interconnection."

The traceroute shows that all of the IP addresses the traffic is flowing through are assigned to either Comcast or Netflix:

A Comcast spokesperson declined to comment. We haven't heard back from Netflix yet.

GigaOm's Stacey Higginbotham reported that a "source in the industry" confirmed there is a direct interconnection agreement between Netflix and Comcast, "but declined to comment further, only saying that it was a recent development."

Netflix and its Internet transit providers have been warring with consumer ISPs like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon for many months.

Further Reading

To provide better performance to its customers, Netflix offers to peer directly with consumer ISPs—that is, exchange traffic without an intermediary—and to place its video caches inside ISP networks to get them closer to consumers. While some ISPs have accepted this offer, others have refused, saying Netflix should have to pay to get better access to home consumers.

A deal between Netflix and Comcast could involve peering, caching, or both.

Netflix performance on Comcast has been dropping for months, but Comcast may have an incentive to partner with Netflix in order to gain the good graces of regulators who will examine its proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable. Netflix may also be more willing to negotiate with ISPs in general given a recent court decision that gutted network neutrality laws, allowing ISPs to block or degrade third-party traffic. Comcast, however, is still bound by those net neutrality rules until 2018 because of a condition on its 2011 purchase of NBCUniversal.

As we wrote earlier today, Verizon remains locked in a battle with Netflix and Cogent, one of the companies Netflix pays to distribute its traffic.